s 



LWeRi 



ROGERS, A, L. 

Letters outlining the Waters 
ville vision of Modern Agricul 

tural and Vocational Education 
and ?arm Credits. 





Glass ^ T 3 ^ 

Book >V\/^"R n 



63d Congress { 
1st Session ) 



SENATE 



Document 

No. 164 



AGRICULTURAL AND 

VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 

AND FARM CREDITS 



LETTERS 



A. L. ROGERS, OF WATERVILLE, WASH. 
OUTLINING THE WATERVILLE VISION OF 
THE CORRECT IDEA OF MODERN AGRICUL- 
TURAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 
AND FARM CREDITS 




PRESENTED BY MR. JONES 

AUGUST 13, 1913. — Ordered to be printed 



WASHINGTON 
1913 




^1 



OFD. 
5 23 '918 






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4 



AGRICULTURAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 



State of Washington, 

Department of Education, 
Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. 
Hon. A. L. Rogers, 

Watervillt , Wash. 
My Dear Mr. Rogers : In my report to the State Bankers' Asso- 
ciation in Bellingharn, August 7. I would like to refer to your great 
work in Waterville by way of illustration of the ultimate end and 
aim of the agricultural and industrial movement in the public 
schools. Would yon, therefore, dictate me a letter outlining the 
Rogers-Wiley Waterville vision as you showed it to me last month? 
I should feel honored to receive such a letter from you in the near 
future. 

Very truly, yours, Calvin C. Thomason, 

Field Contest Organizer. 



waterville WORK OUR agricultural and vocational school. 

Waterville, Wash., July 18, 1913. 
Mr. Calvin C. Thomason, 

State Field Contest Organizer, Olym/pia, Wash. 
Dear Sir: Your letter of the 12th instant received. Regarding 
the Waterville vision of the correct idea of modern agricultural 
and vocational education, I will state that in our stand for good 
rural schools we simply are endeavoring to introduce into the com- 
munity the best and most up-to-date information of a helpful kind 
which there is to-day. In Washington. D. C. there are vaults 
stacked high with bulletins giving valuable reports upon agricul- 
tural, horticultural, vocational, and animal industry problems. In 
every State as well as Washington there are agricultural colleges 
and experiment stations engaged in the same work. I say there is 
no lack of information to-day, but there is a decided lack of ways 
and means of getting it out to the farm and having it put in 
practice there. Pullman College is a fine institution for Whitman 
County, but Douglas County gets but little benefit from it. The in- 
spiration is too far away. If a Douglas County farmer attends any 
of their short-course schools and lectures, his railroad fare alone 
would cost more than $30. His board and lodging would be at 
least $1 per day; only a few farmers could stand to hire help to 

82000—1.-. 3 



4 AGRICULTURAL -VXD VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 

attend to their stock and home duties while they are away three 
and four weeks, even in the dull season. 'Mien, too, the average 
farmer is a little shy about sending Ids children two and three 
hundred miles away to institutions whose teachings encourage ideals 
that may lead them away from the environments in which he and his 
have been raised. He is, also, inclined to feel that this higher (-dura- 
tion will render thorn dissatisfied with their Lot as farmers and give 
them wnuio- conceptions of that which has been his lifes work and 
study— conlicting, in fact, with the plans and aspirations which 
he has builded for his children's future. Then, agam, few farmers 
can afford this expense, and he feels that he needs his children S 
help during his busy season, and. therefore, prefers to school Lus 
children nearer home. . 

The high-class knowledge and scientific data <>t our public insti- 
tutions must be brought closer to the people; they must be m the 
atmosphere as an inspiration surrounding these people that need 
n and can make use of diem. If the mountain won t come down 
to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain. I believe the com- 
mittee on agriculture of the State Bankers' Association had ■ 
vision when they stood behind the country farm director bill thai 
passed our legislature last winter. The Waterville consolidated high 
school will become the mediator and collecting agency of all this 
valuable knowledge, and will dispense it not only to the rural chil- 
dren but to the actual farmer, and thereby establish the best up-to- 
date practice needed in our community. In planning our work we 
e tr ied to harmonize and utilize our public utilities to their high- 
stage of efficiency by combining school buildings, athletic fields, 
gymnasium work, farm and city garden tracts fair grounds and 
buildings, agricultural demonstration grounds, horticultural helds, 
and nursery work. We also have plans for working out the annual 
industry side of the question. We expect to build a model In m. b r 
our county farm director on these demonstration grounds, tor tie 
will be the inspirational man who will, through his general super- 
vision, with the help of a gcod science man m the school, connect 
„p the the< ry with the practical side oi this important work. 

Waterville'- consolidated school comprises six outside districts, 
with a total assessed valuation of about $1,225,000. By bonding we 
are building a 20-room up-to-date school building, with all the pro- 
visions for teaching agricultural, vocational, and business train- 
ing along with the genera] academic school work. Through the pub- 
lic spirit of our county commissioners and our city fathers we have 
* 99-year lease on 80 acres of fine farm land thai is situated one-halt 

mile from our 10-acre campus in th titer of our city. Adjoining 

our campus this scho< 1 owns 10 acres of city property tor tarm a id 
city garden demonstration grounds. In another addition it has 62 
1, t's. which will, in time, be sold and the proceeds will be invested by 
the i ashiers of our two banks, and the earned interest each year will 
become a perpetual library fund. In Douglas County the annual pre- 
cipitate n is about from L3 to H inches. It is necessary that we un- 
derstand dry-farming methods. Our crop season is short; we need 
a variety < f wheat that will mature early and be « ut < 1 the way ot 
the hot winds and'extreme heat of the middle summer. \\ e have dis- 
covered that, in all < ur wheat fields, of the many varieties raise I that 



AGEICULTUEAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 5 

there are heads that mature two and three weeks ahead of the average 
crop. AVe propose to take 10 acres of our demonstration ground and 
see what we can do to improve and overcome all difficulties that con- 
front ns in growing our wheat crops to make safe farming. There 
will be as many boys connected with this work as there are varieties 
of wheat. Each boy will have charge of an exact acre of grain. 

There will be a prize of $25 for the boy that makes the best show- 
ing in the fall at our county fair. He will study his crop from the 
time it comes out of the ground until he harvests his samples. He 
will commence by going over the ground and picking out the 
strong, vigorous plants, and identifying them by driving a stake 
and tying a red string around them. He will select and study such 
plants that are well rooted and well stooled, stiff and strong in the 
straw, long, well-filled heads that mature early and at the same 
time. Each boy will have his display in the building at the county 
fair, and be on hand to tell the farmers what he has done. This 
choice seed will be sown the next year and be carefully studied and 
selected, and, possibly, the next year, and when we have got it to as 
high a stage of perfection as may be desired, we will save the seed 
from the entire acre; we then will find a farmer with a good, clean 
piece of land, that is free from weeds and foul matter, and get 
him to sow the same and offer him a premium of 5 cents per bushel 
for his crop the coming fall. The next year we will find several 
farmers with clean land and their crops will furnish seed for the 
whole county — seed that will be acclimated and adapted to our 
soil and rainfall — that will mature early, and, at the same time, with 
an increased production. AAe will take L0 acres for corn culture. 
The elevation of our plateau is about 2,600 feet above the sea level. 
Our nights are cool, but we believe we can develop a variety of 
corn that will make 10 tons ensilage, eventually, to the acre. If it 
can be done, the silo will make a dairy country of eastern Wash- 
ington, and our wheat farmers will slide into diversified farming 
without shock or jar. It is impossible to expect a farmer with 
320 to 040 acres of wheat land, with a $10,000 outfit of machinery 
and horses, to jump immediately into diversified farming. His 
evolution into changed conditions must be slow. He must feel his 
way, or he will go broke. AA"e propose that our consolidated com- 
munity school shall solve these problems, and prove what is the 
best practice before he is forced to take these chances. In other 
words, through its experiments, eliminate all chances. We will set 
aside grounds for experiments with barley, oats, potatoes, flax, and 
other farm products that are. or may be, adapted to our soil and 
climate, and carry on the work with the agricultural classes in much 
the same way as I have outlined the wheat culture, offering prizes 
in competition with each variety. 

In the department of animal industry we have visions of com- 
munity stallions, bulls, rams, and boar pigs, so that it will b$ pos- 
sible to breed true to blood and type. There are no reasons on 
earth why Douglas County can not become famous for its pure-blood 
Normans, Shire and Coach horses, its pure blood Holstein and 
Ayrshire cattle, its pure-blood Berkshire and Poland China pigs. 
A full-blood Norman horse is worth $300, and a scrub is worth from 
$75 to $100, and both require about the same amount of feed and 



6 AGBICTJLTUKAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 

care. A first-class cow wil] net you $100 a year i n butter fat, and a 
poor cow will -imply waste your feed with no returns. A pure-bred 
pig wil] dress 300 pounds at 8 months old, and it will take twice the 
feed and a good deal more time to put that weight on a scrub. We 
believe that the people living in our consolidated school district will 
provide ways and means whereby we can start this animal industry 
of pure-blood stock on our schoo] demonstration farm, and thereby 
utilize the feed raised on the 80 acres. Moderate charges of service 
wil] pay all expenses, and at the same time the scholars will have the 
opportunity of knowing and judging the best stock. 

The farm and city garden tracts adjoining our campus will be 
more or less under the supervision of the department of domestic 
science. The school auditorium will be open to the use of the 
farmers' union and all public gatherings, when not in use by the 
school. The gymnasium and baths will be open to the younir busi- 
ness men and clerks, and young men from the country at stated 
hours when not in use by the school. The July races, potato car- 
nivals, and county fairs will lie held on our demonstration grounds. 
All school laboratories for the analysis of soil and all experimental 
departments will be open at all times with its best information to all 
the farmers. Our school libraries will contain all the yearbooks 
from the Agricultural Department at Washington, D. C. We will 
get on the mailing list of all the agricultural colleges and experi- 
mental stations in every State in the Union. This valuable infor- 
mation can be had without cost to the school. There will be pigeon- 
holes for bulletins on wheat, corn, barley, oats, potatoes, and all 
farm products, diseases of animals, and breeding of stock, and all 
scientific experimental work in all phases of rural life conditions. 
Now there is nothing wonderful or original about this work. We 
have simply got the vision that by organizing and utilizing our pub- 
lic utilities we can introduce into our consolidated district school 
and county organizations what the State is doing at our agricul- 
tural college at Pullman for the State at large. We are simply 
going to collaborate with them and try and bring their great work 
closer, and in a more economical and inspirational way to all the 
rural people. When we first began to study these questions, we 
thought we must have State aid to bring these things about, but now 
Ave are convinced that through the consolidation of these school dis- 
tricts, and by the proper organization of our public utilities, we can 
bring all this about with but little additional expense to the tax- 
payers over and above the cost of the old system of separate schools. 
Self-help is the only help that has lasting value. Our aim is to 
educate for the usefulness as well a- for honors. The handwriting is 
on the wall for the big wheat farmer. His days are numbered. 

Twenty years ago I operated a Hour mill in this section. Our 
wheat then tested as high as 44 per cent gluten: to-day the test runs 
from 20 per cent to 30 per cent. This is a suit sign they are wheat- 
ing the fertility out of the soil, and diversified farming must in time 
take it- place. ' These schools mus< point out the way for the coming 
generation, and smooth the way for the wheat farmer to gradually 
change his methods. The wheat habit is as bad as the hookworm. 
We hear a good deal nowadays about the gasoline plow and cater- 
pillar engines. I say that any man who has the credit and the nerve 
to buy one of these is an enemy to his community. Farming less 



AGRICULTURAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. / 

than a section of land, one of them can not be used profitably. They 
are coming into this country, and their coming means the consolida- 
tion of farms already too big, the removal of division fences, and 
the working of larger and larger areas of soil with no possibility of 
diversification of crops, and to which never a pound of fertilizer is 
added to the ground. Such men. when they have worked the country 
for all it is worth, will sell their holdings en slow notes, take their 
winnings, and get out of the country, leaving a run-down farm to the 
community and to posterity. There are laws to-day regulating the 
business of so-called public-service corporations, railroads, telegraph 
companies, steamship lines, etc., yet the soil is the very foundation 
upon which is built the great business of to-day, and to me it some- 
times looks as if we were getting at things wrong end to when we 
regulate the business of public-service concerns and let the farmers 
treat the soil as they will, for I contend that he who is charged with 
the responsibility of tilling the soil has upon him a great responsi- 
bility indeed. Humanity looks to-day to the soil for food and cloth- 
ing, and in this sense the farming of land is a public service. 
Yours, sincerely. 

A. L. ROGERS- 



FARM CREDITS. 

TVateeville, Wash., April 19, 101 J. 
Prof. L. I. Brislawn, 

Department of Economics, Pull man College, Pullman, Wash. 
Dear Proeessor : Your letter of recent date received. I have been 
dead, dog tired every night for the past week, having planted some 
200 trees; hence delay in answering your letter. I have filled out 
the inclosed questions to the best of my ability and according to the 
manner in which agricultural credits have been handled in this sec- 
tion. The system has been changing year by year since the pioneer 
days of 25 years ago, land values are becoming more settled, the 
possibilities of safe farming are becoming more definite, and there- 
fore interest rates are gradually getting lower as the speculative 
conditions disappear. This is, at present, a one crop wheat pro- 
ducing country; one-half the land is summer fallowed each year; 
consequently there is but one pay day each year, and the farmer 
gets his credits on that basis. The whole system is inefficient and 
uneconomic. Very few of them have made much money outside of 
the raise in values of their land. They are all farming on too big 
a scale. Under the present system they are destructive as hell in 
their methods. They are going into debt, buying more land, gas- 
traction engines, and 10-bottom plows. No rotation or diversifica- 
tion of crops, just wheat, wheat, wheat: simply mining the soils and 
selling the surface of their farms. The greatest trouble with the 
average farmer is he is getting too much credit; and the bankers and 
merchants are due some consideration and also some condemnation 
in taking long chances in their desire to help the farmer and develop 
the country, even though they do it with the idea of making a profit. 
One great trouble is the American farmer is not an agriculturist, 
but a speculator in lands: he values the soil to exploit it, and not for 
its true producing qualities. I need no better proof of this assertion 



8 AGRICULTURAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 

than statistics Prom the Middle and Now England States, where you 
can buy farms for Less than the costs of improvements on them. I 
know plenty of men of wealth who would be glad to make farm loans 
at 6 per cent on 25 or 50 rears* time under the amortization plan of 
retiring the principal and interest, but men with capital hesitate in 
taking chances on the ignorant, shiftless, and speculative methods of 
the average American farmer: the land would be worn out before the 
mortgage became due. 

There is an immutable law in loaning money — the greater the 
risk the higher the rate — and whenever the American farmer quali- 
fies himself and his conditions the same as the German and the 
French farmer has done, he will get just as good accommodations, 
but not until then. Under the laws of compensation most everyone 
gets what is coming to him. The rich man gets his ice in the sum- 
mer and the poor man gets his ice in the winter, but they all get ice. 
A bunch of farmers came into my office the other day kicking on the 
rates of interest. I informed them that not one of them was a genu- 
ine farmer; they were simply speculators; they demanded loans up 
to almost the actual value of the land, based on their earning ca- 
pacity; they expected to scratch around on the surface of the ground 
to make expenses and no improvements, hoping and expecting that 
some sucker would come along in a year of two and give them twice 
what they paid for it. The money loaner expects and demands 
the highest rate of interest he can write when he goes into that kind 
of a partnership. I further informed these gentlemen that there would 
some day he an agricultural people living in this section who would 
be entitled to a very low rate of interest, but those people would not 
come to the market in an automobile: they would stick to the dead- 
axle wagon, and every time they came to town it would be loaded 
with something to sell, and when they went home they would haul 
back a load of manure to strengthen their collateral, so that their 
land would be worth as much when the mortgage became due as 
it was the day it was written, and thereby justify a demand for 
lower rate, of interest. A farmer, to make money, has got to learn 
to tote both ways, but the biggest load must go toward the market. 
The wheat farmer works hard two months in the spring and two 
months in the fall, and the balance of the time he sits around kick- 
ing the grain man. the transportation man. the middle man. and the 
banker, when he should be milking cows and feeding hogs and 
doing diversified farming, thereby maintaining the fertility of the 
soil and having something to sell when he comes to town to buy 
iii- supplies. 'Idie silo will make a dairy country out of eastern 
Washington and double the values and producing; qualities of the 
land. Some of the farmers are waking up to this fact and more 
will follow later on. 

Long-time loans secured by mortgages on land should not be 
made except for the purchase price or permanent improvements on 
same. The farmers of this section can. at all times, get any reason- 
able amount on their lands on three or five years' time at 8 
per cent, with a privilege of paying $100, or any multiple thereof, 
on the principal at any interest-payment period, and all papers 
generally become due in the fall, after harvest, for their conven- 
ience. So much for long-time credits. 



AGRICULTURAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 9 

Our bankers have always handled the farmers' short-time loans, 
and every deserving man has had all he required, and the rates have 
always been in keeping with the risk. For example, if Bill Jones 
wanted $200 June 1 to pay for his spring work he gave his note. 
due December 1, at 12 per cent. On September 1, if he wanted $400 
to carry him through harvest, he gave his note, due December 1, at 
12 per' cent. He got what he wanted when he wanted it — all he 
needed — and he virtually only pays 4 per cent per annum for his 
accommodations. 

Since the first of the year our banks have reduced the interest rate 
to 10 per cent on short-time loans. 

I have been in the general merchandise business for over a quarter 
of a century, and I know the eastern Washington farmer just as 
though I had been through him with a candle. I have let him get 
into debt and furnished the brains to get him out of debt, and for 
the past three years we have gone into practically a cash business. 
We did this as much for the sake of the farmer as for our own. 
If you would sit down with the average farmer in the spring and 
figure not the actual amount necessary to carry him through until 
fall and say. " Here. Bill, is the cash: yon take it and pay it out as 
you need it," I will gamble dollars to doughnuts that in 60 days 
he would have spent it all, and 90 per cent of the amount would 
be invested in things he never intended to spend it for. and he 
would be just as inconsiderate in paying it back promptly when due 
as he was in spending it. and that is just the reason Bill has to pay 
the price for his accommodation. I am sick and tired of hearing 
that the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer. 

It is up to the individual to make good. There is an- unwritten 
law that every person has got what he can take care of. for if he 
don't, the other fellow gets it. You can't mix business and philan- 
thropy and have the balance on the right side of the ledger. There 
are reasons for successes and there are also reasons for all failures. 
For 25 years I have been the credit man of our firm. We have done 
a credit business of from $75,000 to $100,000 a year. We never 
lost more than a quarter of 1 per cent on our sales, and never sued 
but three men in that time. They say extending credit is a science — 
it may be so, but the whole secret of success in that line is simply 
keeping each individual man inside his earning capacity. One man 
will pay you $5 when he couldn't pay you $10: another wili pay 
you $10 when he couldn't pay you $20 — and so on up as high as 
the qualities of your customer will permit you to play the game. 
All men are selfishly honest and will pay under the ordinary stress 
of affairs. When a banker, merchant, or farmer gets a rating of AA 
in Bradstreet it means he has a record; he has been tested by lire, as 
it were; that he would put his family on bread and water rather than 
to sacrifice his commercial credit. That man has honesty, capaci- 
ties to make good, and ten to one. lie has the collateral. He can get 
anything he wants. I simply state these facts to show y >u that you 
can net handle credits in a general way. Most magazine and news- 
paper writers handle the subject of credits as though it was a com- 
modity that you could shovel into a wheelbarrow or haul off in a 
wagon. 

I served several years on the discount committee in a national bank, 
and I learned that when a man presents himself at a bank window 



10 AGRICULTURAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 

asking for accommodations he must have the evidence of his col- 
lateral, his credentials, know his piece, or pack a gun, or he don't 
get any money, and no changes in the Laws will ever help him to get 
it otherwise. It is true that the farmers* paper is slow, awfully 
slow sometimes. He can find more foolish excuses for not paying 
when due. such as the bottom fell out of the well, the chimney fell 
off the roof, or the bull jumped over the moon. In the meantime you 
have intermittent periods of night sweats through the fear that the 
bank examiner will slip around and catch you with an overstock of 
musty papers (a large part of which possibly he has already hinted 
you had better place in the morgue; in other words, charge off to 
profit- and-loss account), hut by gathering an increased stock of pa- 
tience, much solicitation, and prayer, you drift along until you strike 
a bumper crop and in the end you generally get your money. One 
of the best and most prominent responsible farmers in this section 
bought an automobile and stood me off two years on a $450 grocery 
bill, and so it goes. But, take it all in all. the farmer is as good a 
risk as the merchant, artisan, and other classes, and is entitled to as 
good a rate as anyone. There is a new day coming for the agricul- 
turist; his sons and daughters are awakening to the call of the effi- 
cient and scientific side of his work. The whole system is being 
made over. He will in time have a better appreciation of credits 
and will make better use of them when he gets them, but it is up to 
him as an individual to make good and thereby establish a com- 
munity standard for general lower rates and wider extended credits, 
and I would further remark that the farming classes should pick 
the mote out of their own eyes and study the scientific and efficient 
side of their great calling before they criticize too deeply the business 
and professions of other classes. 

Please excuse this hurried jumble of facts. The question of rural 
credit- is worthy of much serious consideration. 
Yours, sincerely. 

A. L. Rogers. 

U 



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